


who says that love is a one-way street

by CallMeBombshell



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009), Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-17
Updated: 2011-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-26 04:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is unconscious, but Mary has something to say regarding Mister Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who says that love is a one-way street

"I know," she tells him, when she follows his out of John's room and into the hallway, "that you care for him as much as I do."

His back stiffens beneath the borrowed white coat, the coat he'd donned to hide from her while he checked on his closest friend. He should have known, she thinks, that it would be no use; she's met all of the nurses and doctors tending to her fiancé. But perhaps, she thinks also, perhaps for once he's not thinking entirely clearly.

"He'd say the it was worth the wounds," she tells him, and she knows it to be true, knows it in the same way that he should already know it, because as much as she knows John Watson right down to his heart, Sherlock Holmes knows infinitely more.

He mutters something, _I doubt it_ , she thinks he says, and he looks for a moment like he might turn, but then he walks away without a word, even when she calls after him.

She watches him turn the corner and disappear before she turns and returns to John's room. He's still asleep, face still pinched with pain, but his wounds are clean, the shrapnel removed, and even with the extent of his injuries, she's been told he should recover admirably. She sits by his bedside with a sigh, reaching out a hand to smooth along the edge of the sheet that rests across his chest.

"At first I wasn't certain," she says, softly, even though she knows that he won't hear, "whether to call you mad, for living with him, or brave. I knew the stories, of course," she says, smiling, "the madcap adventures published in the papers, the news articles about the crimes you solved together."

John twitched, breath catching for a moment, and she bites her lip, waiting for him to settle again.

"I didn't know," she says a moment later. "I'd heard the stories, but then you started talking, about how you lived, and what he was like, and I realised the stories are nothing at all like the man, are they? He's so much more complicated," she says, "than I thought he could be." It sounds like a confession, and she looks away but keeps speaking.

"I thought perhaps he was simply mad," she says. "You spoke about his peculiarities, his habits, and you never quite apologised for them, although I know you must have done so before."

She looks back at John, smiling slightly. "That is very like you," she laughs, "to forever be apologising for him, for the things that he does that are strange, or rude, or upsetting. You apologised to me, do you remember? After that dinner, you apologised to me for him upsetting me. I wasn't really angry, you know," she says, "not like you thought. Oh I was angry for a time, perhaps, but only until I had calmed down and saw it was for it was. He'd done me no true insult. After all," she says, laughing, "can something truly be counted an insult when it is said only out of fervent, misplaced jealousy?"

She smiles, thinking of the look on Holmes' face, and wonders what he would think if she were to tell him that, at the moment, she had been able to read him like a book.

"He cares greatly for you," she says, turning back to look at John, reaching out a hand and tracing the lines of his arm with a light fingertip. "He doesn't say it, but it is obvious. He is lost without you, my dear, driven to distraction and pettiness when your attention is commandeered by others, and driven to clumsy subterfuge and naked worry at the sight of you laid up and injured.

"And he is likewise important to you," she says, hearing her voice drop nearly to a whisper. "It is a thread running throughout your tales of adventure, you and he, always side-by-side. And yet more, when you speak of how you live, of your rooms, your dog. He is always there, and I do not think you realise the extent of his presence."

She sighs, feeling her mouth twitching into a helpless sort of smile as she looks down at him. "My parents were upset," she says, "when you did not make it to tea with us. But I understood. He called, and he had need of you, and so of course you went. I cannot blame you for that. You do fine work together, my dear. The doctor and the detective," she says fondly.

"To be honest," she says, "I do worry about the both of you. I worry what will become of you without each other. You say it will be good to be away from him, but you never say that you will miss him, and perhaps you don't realise that you will, although I know it is true. And he misses you already," she adds, sighing. "You never complain, but I know that he does not like me. He sees me a threat, you see. He fears that I will take you away from him entirely, that he will be left, alone, without you.

"I could never, of course. You care too much for him on your own," she says. "Taking you away would only hurt you, too, and even with his distaste for me, that you care for him is enough for me to extend the same. I've no wish to hurt him or to see him hurt in any way."

John shifts, slightly, his arms moving against the blankets. She lays her hand against his elbow, gently, where the skin is still unbroken, if a little bruised. She stays like that for a moment, just watching the subtle motions of his chest as he breathes.

"He loves you, you know," she says finally, voice barely more than a murmur. "It's obvious, really," she laughs, "so obvious, in fact, that it's in everything you do, so obvious and so everywhere that no one has been able to see it. It's in his eyes, the way they brighten the moment you speak, even if it's not to him. It's in the way he is so childish, poking at you, angering you, playing you, all just to have your attention. It's in the way his hands shook, earlier, the way he blames himself for what happened."

She looks away, biting her lip. "He loves you," she repeats, "loves you completely. He wishes, I think, that he could be in my place," she whispers, "that he could be able to love you as I do, as I will. I did not lie when I told him so, and he did not dispute it, although I do not think he grasped the full meaning of my words. It would seem an impossible thing to him, I think," she admits, "for anyone to know the depth of his feelings for you, especially someone who he believes holds him in such low regard."

She blinks, realising there are tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes, spurred by the evident passion she had not realised she possessed for the matter. _It would seem_ , she thinks, absently, _that I have come to care a good deal for Mister Sherlock Holmes_. She laughs helplessly, turning back to look at John.

"But why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I see it, see his emotions laid out on his face the same, the very same as mine are every day, every time I look at you? He and I are truly no different in this regard," she says, and finds that she believes it absolutely.

"The law would say it is wrong," she whispers, leaning close, "but I can find nothing to condemn. If he loves you truly, as I believe he does, then what harm is that? He loves you, and he cares for you, wants to see you safe and sound and healthy. He wants to see you happy, my love, and he knows, as I am beginning to, that he is, in some part, essential to that very outcome."

She runs a hand, carefully, down John's arm until she can slip her fingers into his, gripping lightly.

"He needs you," she says, and hears her voice firm and certain. "And you need him. I will not stand in your way. He cannot be rid of me, for my heart belongs always to you. But I am not such a fool that I cannot see that, as well as you love me, so also is he dear to you, perhaps even in equal measure. And so I will not keep you apart."

She stands, smiling fondly down at John. "You were meant to be at each other's sides," she tells him, bending to brush a kiss across his knuckles, the back of his hand. He doesn't move, but his breathing is even, and his face seems less pained.

"I will come back," she tells him, moving towards the door. "But first, I must go to Baker Street." She stops in the doorway and turns back for a moment, smiling at John.

"I must have a word with Sherlock Holmes."


End file.
